Safer Greenbelt Services: Evaluation

Safer Greenbelt's services include electrical evaluation for people who are buying property, who are concerned about their wiring, who simply want to understand it better, or who want to improve it:

• How old is it, and what does its age indicate?
• What seems relatively safe or unsafe, legal or questionable?
  
• Is the system likely to serve delicate electronic loads adequately?
• How about substantial machine or heating loads?
• What are the cheapest legal options for the work you want or need?
• The safest and most reliable?
• The most flexible?

Basic safety evaluation rests on standards published by the National Fire Protection Association, which uses an open, ANSI-approved expert-consensus process that welcomes a wide range of public input. You get to choose:

• We can look for evidence
  • of damage;
  • of deterioration;
  • of risky work such as product misapplication.
  • David also warns customers when he comes across electrical equipment that professionals widely consider unreliable, and explains why.
  • He inspects wiring for legality, meaning compliance with requirements in the National Electrical Code, as adopted. The code is updated every three years. However, Prince George's County may not adopt and enforce the latest version of the code, unamended. As he wrote this in mid-2025, the county still enforced the 2017 electrical code, which will be three editions behind the best industry standard as of Fall 2025. So you can choose between two or three sets of criteria:
    • Favored this simple question:
      How well does this electrical system meet the latest code version and the best current practices? How far does it depart from them?
      — but there are other reasonable choices . . .
    • Did your wiring meet legal requirements when it was installed? Sometimes the answer, to a professional, is obviously "NO." Other times, this can be researched, though digging through historical records costs time, which is of course billed.
      
      This information gives us an idea of whether the original installer was knowledgeable, skilled, and conscientious. Commonly, though, a system has received perhaps-haphazard modifications over the years.
    • How well does it meet the county's current requirements? Or—perhaps this seems a subtle distinction, but it can make a serious difference in terms of safety standards—how far is it behind the minimum standard the county would apply to new wiring?
    • Does the wiring meet the criteria listed in the National Fire Protection Association's standard for inspection of existing residences? David served on the committee updating the most-recent edition.
      
      
    • Any other red flags?
      Some wiring bears evidence of attitudes such as "Well, I think I've done pretty much what the video showed," or "It's Friday afternoon; if it looks like this works, I'm out of here."
      Not good enough.
      During inspection, whatever the legal criterion, if he comes across something dangerously deteriorated or otherwise defective, he will warn you. In addition, you can trust him not to restore power that feeds, for example, a fixture he judges to present a clear danger. He will document the reason for this judgment, to distance Safer Greenbelt in the event someone else energizes it and this results in harm to person or property.
      
      When you schedule a consultation, feel free to request a copy of any of the columns or articles shown.
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